Sports Spectrum

Real issues in sports and life.

Tags: sin

This past Sunday, the NASCAR season concluded after its most complicated playoff system ever. Sixteen drivers entered the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup. Then, every three races, four drivers were eliminated until only the final four remained to battle for the title this past Sunday at Miami-Homestead Speedway. And, after 10 races totaling over…

Perfection. One luxury car manufacturer says that their mission is the pursuit of perfection—and that is likewise true of every Major League Baseball pitcher. The perfect game is the Holy Grail of pitching and has only been achieved 23 times in the entire history of the big leagues. That is 23 times in over 135…

Yesterday, the world’s greatest sporting spectacle, the World Cup, came to a conclusion with the final match being played at the Estadio de Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. What began with 32 teams from across the globe was settled with Germany defeating Argentina for the Cup. The 2014 edition has been widely praised as one…

The last two years have been quite a struggle for players and fans of the Los Angeles Angels. With sometimes ineffective starting pitching, a shaky bullpen, and a string of ongoing injuries to key position players, the Halos were hurting—both physically and metaphorically. After 10 years of division titles and playoff appearances, the last few…

This is Memorial Day weekend, and much of the nation’s sporting attention will focus on motorsports, with NASCAR’s big race in Charlotte always a highlight. However, even those who don’t follow auto racing will at least give some attention to the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500. One of motorsports’ most iconic events, the 500 is…

Last Friday night, Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish was, again, dominant as he faced the Boston Red Sox in Arlington, Texas. Darvish struck out 12 while walking only two, and went 8 2/3 innings in the 8-0 Ranger victory. Unfoirtunately for Darvish, it was with 2 outs in the night inning that he lost a…

2013 was not the best of times for NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin. His rough start littered with wrecked cars at Daytona Speedweeks took a dangerous turn for the worse at Fontana when, while dueling in the final laps with Joey Logano, Hamlin went head-first into the interior retaining wall and suffered fractured vertebrae. Though he…

It happens every year in every sport. The process of player selection and evaluation is a painstaking one, where scouts scout, talent evaluators evaluate, coaches coach, and decisions are made. Sometimes those choices are made in the draft, where, in the NFL for instance, mountains of data are accumulated and analyzed, combined results are put…

Last week was not exactly the finest hour for several umpires in Major League Baseball. One game’s outcome was wrongly determined because a home run was ruled to not be a home run—even after it was checked on video replay. Even worse, later in the week, one manager was able to effectively convince the umpires…

And now the field is set for the Big Dance—college basketball’s championship tournament. And, in a sense, all of the teams have one thing in common. They all start the tournament on level ground. There are no more wins or losses. RPIs are out the window. Records are now moot. Everyone has the same thing—the…

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Athletes do not get into more trouble than other citizens. It just sometimes seems that way. The fact that their indiscretions are announced on SportsCenter does make those difficulties appear to be much more serious.

What is most bothersome about athletes or anyone else who is convicted of a violation are those times when they don’t seem to know how to face up to their error. How often have we heard publicized athletic indiscretions dismissed with something like, “Well, it wasn’t that big a deal.” Or, “I just made a mistake.” Or, “They’re just out to get me.”